Book Image

Mastering Python Networking - Second Edition

By : Eric Chou
Book Image

Mastering Python Networking - Second Edition

By: Eric Chou

Overview of this book

Networks in your infrastructure set the foundation for how your application can be deployed, maintained, and serviced. Python is the ideal language for network engineers to explore tools that were previously available to systems engineers and application developers. In this second edition of Mastering Python Networking, you’ll embark on a Python-based journey to transition from traditional network engineers to network developers ready for the next-generation of networks. This book begins by reviewing the basics of Python and teaches you how Python can interact with both legacy and API-enabled network devices. As you make your way through the chapters, you will then learn to leverage high-level Python packages and frameworks to perform network engineering tasks for automation, monitoring, management, and enhanced security. In the concluding chapters, you will use Jenkins for continuous network integration as well as testing tools to verify your network. By the end of this book, you will be able to perform all networking tasks with ease using Python.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

The Arista Python API

Arista Networks have always been focused on large-scale data center networks. In its corporate profile page (https://www.arista.com/en/company/company-overview), it is stated as follows:

"Arista Networks was founded to pioneer and deliver software-driven cloud networking solutions for large data center storage and computing environments."

Notice that the statement specifically called out large data centers, which we already know are exploded with servers, databases, and, yes, network equipment. It makes sense that automation has always been one of Arista's leading features. In fact, they have a Linux underpin behind their operating system, allowing many added benefits such as Linux commands and a built-in Python interpreter.

Like other vendors, you can interact with Arista devices directly via eAPI, or you can choose to leverage their Python...